Norway is rapidly looking like it will be the first country in Europe to go fully electric with its cars, as predictions for this year in the car market suggest that no more petrol or diesel vehicles will be sold.
While not in the European Union, Norway looks likely to trump all member states of the neighbouring bloc by the end of 2025 and go 100 percent electric. Ironically, Norway is the biggest producer of petroleum in Europe after Russia.
According to data from the Nordic Road Federation, in 2023, 82.4 percent of vehicles that were sold were electric. In 2024 they reached 88.9 percent, and it is expected that this year it will reach 100 percent. The country is becoming a standard bearer for decarbonisation, provided that the electricity needed to recharge those cars comes from a renewable source.
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Last year, the EU pledged to stop selling new combustion cars by 2035, and, according to forecasts, the Nordic country will have left them standing behind by 10 years.
Norway bucks a trend in the rest of Europe
Unlike Norway, the rest of the continent continues preferring gas guzzlers. Data from the European Association of Automobile Manufacturers says that EV sales have fallen in the EU compared to the previous year, dragged down by the drop in sales in Germany and France. Although, Spain has had a slow but stable growth of 11.2 percent.
The Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition says that the transport sector, mainly the road sector, was the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the country, well above power plants producing electricity and much more than industry.
However, time will tell if the Norwegians are completely happy with their electric cars. Tesla, the most popular brand of EV on the market, says that their batteries are designed to last around 8 years based on ‘average use’. Currently, the cost of replacing a battery on a Tesla Model S is estimated at around €10,000, rendering the possibility of resale dependent largely on how many kilometres the vehicle has done. Norway is a big country.